This article is part of our Ice Cream Report 2015.

Handheld ice creams have grown up. In a flat market – value sales are up 0.9% on volumes up 0.6% [IRI 52 w/e 28 February 2015] – indulgent, adult-orientated offerings are making all the running as kids treats are left out in the cold. 

Take Wall’s Solero Mojito. This cocktail-inspired ice lolly, which contains traces of rum, has helped add £3.8m to the brand’s value as volumes soared 37% in the past year. Unilever stablemate Magnum has been playing similar tricks, with its Marc de Champagne variant helping drive much of its £9.3m growth.

The launch, to coincide with Magnum’s 25th anniversary last year certainly demonstrates the potential of limited edition variants. The brand has launched two undeniably grown-up limited editions for summer 2015 – Magnum Pink Raspberry and Magnum Black Espresso.

So indulgent brands are launching a boozed up attack, but what else have they got in their arsenal? And, what can those aimed at family audiences do to fight back?

Unfortunately, they can’t do anything about the biggest factor in their downfall – the weather. “Lollies, as an example, are hugely driven by the weather. Although we had a good summer last year it was nothing like the summer of 2013 where we had huge peaks,” says Charlotte Hambling, UK head of marketing at R&R ice cream.

However, she notes there are other factors affecting the performance of kids’ treats, such as Fab which lost £3.2m and Wall’s Calippo, sales of which are down 12.1% on volumes down 21.1%.

“The super-premium tubs, which you wouldn’t think are a direct competitor, have been so heavily promoted and become accessible on price, so the family night in occasion has also eaten into a little bit of territory,” she explains.

Brands are helping to halt the decline with minis, a format both R&R and Unilever are investing in. “Minis address the family occasion and the great thing is there are so many portion in a pack. They’re just seen as nice sized treats for children without parents feeling guilty about them having so much sugar and so on,” adds Hambling. “Minis will continue to grow.”

Top 10 handheld ice cream brands

Source: IRI 52w/e 28 February 2014

 VALUEVOLUME
  £m y-o-y% kgs (m) y-o-y%
Wall’s Magnum 155.4 6.4 23.0 11.1
Wall’s Cornetto 41.6 -6.5 8.4 1.5
Wall’s Solero 16.0 30.8 1.9 37.0
Nestlé Fab 14.6 -18.2 3.3 -22.0
Mars 14.2 -2.6 1.6 -11.6
Cadbury Dairy Milk 13.9 58.8 2.2 22.5
Nestlé Rowntrees Fruit Pastille 13.3 -1.3 2.0 3.0
Oreo 12.1 146.1 2.1 68.7
Cadbury Flake 11.6 4.2 1.6 4.1
Wall’s Mini Twister 10.4 1.8 2.6 6.7
Wall’s Calippo 10.0 -12.1 1.1 -21.1
Wall’s Tangle Twister 7.5 -9.3 0.6 -6.8
Snickers 7.4 1.8 0.8 -12.5
Cadbury Crunchie 7.1 -23.4 0.9 -41.9
Wall’s Big Feast 6.7 -6.0 0.6 -5.0

R&R has launched Nestlé Fab and Knobbly Bobbly in a mini format as well as Rowntrees Randoms and a range of Cadbury mini cones. Unilever, meanwhile, is tapping into the format with Cornetto Miniatures and Cornetto Taco which it hopes will further strengthen the brand’s snacking portfolio.

“Snacking is a key trend and sales opportunity for retailers within ice cream,” says Noel Clarke, brand building director for ice cream at Unilever. “The smaller format of ice cream treats will drive the association of snacking within the ice cream category and drive frequency of purchase from consumers looking for new snacking options.”

Mini variants are also proving popular within the Wall’s range. Mini Calippo gained 12.1% in sales on volumes up 16.6% and Mini Twister saw value sales climb 1.8% on volumes up 6.7% [IRI]. Sales of the Tangle Twister, on the other hand, fell by 9.3% on volumes down 6.8%.

Beechdean, meanwhile, is hoping to entice children with licenced products, featuring characters such as Scooby-Doo, The Simpsons and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It also continued its partnership with Jelly Belly in 2014 to create two impulse ice lollies in orange and cotton candy flavours.

Moving back to indulgent sticks, R&R hoped to encroach on Magnum’s territory with the launch of the Cadbury Dairy Milk stick in the run up to summer 2014. While the launch didn’t slow Magnum down, it did add an additional £5.1m to the range, as sales soared 58.8% on volumes up 22.5%. The launch was quickly followed up by a Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel stick. Hambling believes the success of the product, which was supported by a campaign with the tagline #FreeTheJoy, was because the product played to the strengths of the confectionary sku.

This tactic didn’t help Mars. Sales of its handheld ice cream fell by 2.6% on volumes down 11.6%. Snickers, on the other hand, gained 1.8% in value but volumes declined by 12.5% [IRI].

Sticking close to the original brand paid off for Oreo bringing home the second largest gains of any handheld ice cream brand at £7.2m. This was mainly thanks to the Oreo Ice Cream Sandwich, with Oreo extending into a stick format at the start of 2015.

“Sandwiches as a category in the UK have really struggled to gain traction but in Europe it’s a much bigger category and that’s predominantly been around consumer perceptions of what sandwiches are, as a soggy or softer eat biscuit is a challenge,” she says. “We are more ritual about our biscuits in the UK and therefore it’s been really difficult to find a proposition that works but Oreo has really delivered that. It’s hugely successful and growing within the cookie market and that has been the real leaver to bringing in new shoppers.”

Taking advantage of this growth, R&R has released Maxibon into take home this year and she believes there’s more growth to come from the sandwich format. “It could be a key trend within ice cream moving forward. It’s a difficult one to get right – I don’t think some of the more traditional biscuit brands would carry that kudos but we will see more in brand and private label. Oreo is seen as quite young and trendy so that fits well with the ice cream audience.”

In partnership with

IRI

Data is provided by IRI, a leader in delivering powerful market, consumer and media exposure intelligence and predictive analytics to its clients in the FMCG, retail and over-the-counter health care industries. www.iriworldwide.co.uk.

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